Organizations and Transaction Costs Experiences
I spent
last summer working for my town’s IT department, and I learned a lot about working
organizations from the time that I spent there. My town is a suburb of Chicago
and it as known as one of the wealthiest suburbs in the area. This reputation
did more harm than help for my job because there was a lot of expectations and
town committee members whom we had to answer to, when we really shouldn’t have
had to. The main purpose of my job was to organize the city’s educational technology
and make sure it was all up and running by the time school started. So the job
can be broken down into 4 steps: 1) Collect all of the technology from every
school. 2) take inventory of all the technology and create a list of tech needs
from all the schools. 3) reprogram all of the technology, and get it school
ready. 4) distribute the technology to the schools and make sure it’s up and
running.
This job
dealt with a lot of organization because there were multiple groups that had to
be in contact with each other for things to work smoothly. We had weekly
meetings with the city’s budgeting committee, school officials, and our tech
suppliers so that we could get the job done right. This was a very important
year for the city because the school district was trying out a “one to one”
pilot program where every student in the town is given a laptop for their
school work. We were one of the first towns to do this so it was very stressful
to pull it off. We first had to collect every piece of technology from all the
schools and completely clear their hard drives and make sure that they were in
brand new working condition. Then we met with the school district and saw the
plan that they had created for this school year. This plan pretty much just a
big spreadsheet of how many students they had, how many desktops, laptops,
projectors, iPad, etc. that they needed. So then we had to meet with the City’s
budgeting committee and see if the school’s plans would work along with
ordering every student a laptop. Of course it did not work perfectly so we had
to then see what we were going to sell, and to whom and at what price.
This was
only the first half of the summer, and already it had shown me how important
organizations are in making things happen. Not one of these groups could have
successfully made anything happen if it were not for the other groups working
together. There was definitely a hierarchy in terms of who had to listen to
who. Since I was an intern I had to listen to everybody, but certain managers
had to report to different officials and it seemed that every boss had another
boss.
The main
thing I learned about transaction costs was dealing with other parties. The main
example was with buying technology. We had to buy over 10,000 Chromebooks and
dealing with HP was one of the most tiring tasks of the summer. From setting
the price point on the 10,000 computers to making sure every single one of them
was delivered had proved to be one of the most stressful parts of the summer by
far. Negotiations took up a lot of time, and also waiting for the computers to
be delivered had both been ‘dead times’ where no work could be done until we
had the computers. This was definitely the best example of transaction costs
that I saw that summer. Overall it was a great experience and I am glad at how
much I learned.
I could tell you quite a few stories about dealing with vendors - for the most part, not fun at all! But I digress.
ReplyDeleteYou used the word "technology" a lot in this piece but you didn't definite it. Is it synonymous with the word computers in the context you are discussing or are there other types of technology as well? It would be good to define that more clearly for the reader.
While the actual work has to happen in the summer, given that is when there is a break in the calendar, there must have been much planning about this ahead of time. It would be good if you could describe this. You described the spreadsheet that was produced. But surely there was some narrative to go with it, even if that was rather terse. Or perhaps that was maintained simply as talking points by the committee members. Did you ever hear some narrative to accompany the spreadhseet?
It would also be good for you to talk about the purpose of the project with the laptops. What were some of the goals and why were they in place? Also, what might seem simple to you but is not obvious from reading what you wrote, were the laptops to remain in the school or were students supposed to take them home? And then there might be something about software, how that was licensed or not, whether students could put their own apps on their laptops, and a host of related issues. Likewise, you didn't talk about Internet access from the computers and how that would be managed. On our campus, that is a big deal. I expect it would matter in this setting as well.
As you can tell from our class, I'm not entirely favor of having laptops out during class sessions. So still another question is whether the teachers wanted this and if so why. For doing homework and writing I think a computer is great. Likewise, it is quite good for doing research. But it is not create for encouraging discussion, especially in a face to face setting.
You mentioned this was an internship. Is future employment with the town a reasonable expectation? Or are all summer jobs now called internships, whether the entail future job prospects or not.
Then there are issues like - physical security of the hardware, tech support, and liability in case of damage to the equipment. Were those issues discussed in your planning meetings?
The last thing I will ask about is whether you are aware of other suburbs, perhaps in the San Francisco Bay area, or around Seattle, Austin Texas, Boston or New York, which have done something similar. First movers have to blaze a new trail. Early adopters, may not be complete copycats but typically do want to learn from those who have preceded them. Was there any of that in what you were involved with?